Images from the upcoming PACIFIC 201

Yesterday, I shared the exciting news that the long-awaited PACIFIC 201 may not be awaited much longer.  A new teaser promises a release in the spring of 2019!

Pacific 201 was initially crowd-funded with a Kickstarter back in 2015, with an Indiegogo campaign the following year, giving show-runner ERIC HENRY more than $50,000 to make his fan film.  The principle photography wrapped up last year, and Eric has been deep into post production since then.

During that time, Eric has released some very nice-looking still imagery of his cast (the crew of the starship Pacific NCC-201), his sets, green screen, uniforms, patches, ship designs, and even a few visual FX.  In some of the images, you can even see ways in which Eric has digitally “extended” the sets with things like adding ceilings (which were not initially part of the sets that were constructed).

Yesterday I told you about Pacific 201.  Today, I’m gonna show you.

Continue reading “Images from the upcoming PACIFIC 201”

RELEASE DATE finally announced for a well-known, LONG-AWAITED Trek fan film!

Fans have been waiting YEARS for this announcement!  Back in 2015, this eagerly anticipated Star Trek fan film held a very successful Kickstarter campaign, followed up by a separate Indiegogo campaign that raised additional funding for the production.  I donated to this project myself and have been an active and enthusiastic supporter of it for years.

Nestled between the end of the Romulan War and the start of Captain Kirk’s historic 5-year-mission, this fan production was described as tackling an “entirely unseen era of Star Trek history.”  New Starfleet vessels were designed in CGI, bridging the gap between the NX-01 Enterprise tech and the design of the starships like the Constitution-class.  The visual FX looked amazing!

Sets were built, costumes made, and scenes were even shot.  In fact, a short teaser was released to give a taste of what would be seen in the final production.  The VFX looked fantastic, and even though the brief 3-minute “vignette” mainly showed two characters talking to each other in front of a green screen-composited background, fans still got even more excited to see the finished project.

Donors were initially expecting this promising fan film to be completed and released in 2016, but circumstances intervened and made that impossible.  Eventually, the biggest challenge became trimming what was to be a feature-length Star Trek fan film down to just two 15-minute episodes…showing just the barest bones of the full story.

Unfortunately, money began to run out, many perks were not fulfilled because the final film wasn’t completed, and eventually there weren’t enough funds left to pay to store the sets in the studio where they had been built.  This meant moving them elsewhere and delayed things even more.

The planned 2016 debut was pushed back to 2017 and then 2018.  Some donors began to fear that the final film would never be completed.  But now, finally, there comes a definitive announcement from the show-runner that the completed production will be ready next year in spring 2019!

You’ve probably already guessed what fan project I’m talking about.  If you haven’t, here’s another hint.  The show-runner (who also wrote the script) has a four-letter first name that starts with a vowel and ends with the letter “c”.  His last name is two syllables and is really just another first name.

Aw, you know who I’m talking about by now!

Continue reading “RELEASE DATE finally announced for a well-known, LONG-AWAITED Trek fan film!”

STARSHIP DEIMOS releases their eighth episode: “The Deimos Factor”!

Two weeks after releasing their sixth and seventh episodes just one day apart, the production team for STARSHIP DEIMOS just debuted their eighth episode, “The Deimos Factor.”  If it seems like Deimos is pushing its production warp engines to ludicrous speed, it’s actually much simpler than that.  All of the fan series from POTEMKIN PICTURES ran into a many-months-long delay last year when show-runner and main editor RANDY LANDERS (who also directed each of the latest releases) had quadruple bypass surgery last August.  He’s fine now, by the way.

Randy’s ultimate goal is to release one fan film per month under the Potemkin Pictures label, and it looks like he’s rapidly getting back on schedule.  With seven different fan “series” in active production, plus the 36 episodes of the completed Project: Potemkin, Randy has released a jaw-dropping 62 separate fan films in 8 years, ranging in length from a couple of minutes to nearly an hour.  That’s an amazing accomplishment.

I’ve heard a small number of fans recently disparaging Randy and his fan films, claiming there is weak writing or minimal character development or just complaining about the low production values.  I say: “Nonsense!!! Malarkey!!!  Horse pooey!!!”  What Potemkin Pictures has done is to assemble separate casts of people over five dozen times, get them to perform and complete enough full scenes to create finished productions, edit those scenes together, add VFX and music, and release those completed episodes on a very consistent schedule fro nearly a decade.  Along the way, they built home-made sets, got inexpensive costumes to look like Starfleet officers and assorted aliens, and even had some make-up.

As for the scripts, while not every one is a cinematic masterpiece, they have all managed to be unique and non-repetitive.  They focus on different characters and different scenarios…just like Star Trek.  There are episodes with lots of cast members and ones with just two or three.  There’s first contacts, prime directive dilemmas, space battles, mind control, alien rituals, medical emergencies, diplomatic missions, Starfleet bureaucracy and intrigue, personal crises, spatial anomalies, drama, humor, triumph, and tragedy.  It’s never the same thing twice.

You try to do that 62 times and see how diverse your scripts are!

Anyway, you can watch all 62 productions here on the Potemkin Pictures website.  And you can watch their 63rd release, “The Deimos Factor,” right here, right now…

 

Time to GO FUND the new fan film THE LEXINGTON ADVENTURES! (interview with JOSEPH BONICE and VANCE MAJOR)

Yep, it’s another crowd-funder, folks!  But this one’s only trying to reach $1,350…and they’re already about a third of the way there ($420) in just one week!  So congratulations to THE LEXINGTON ADVENTURES!  If you want to make a donation yourself, here’s the link.  It’s a GoFundMe campaign, meaning there’s no perks.  But there’s also no time limit and no requirement to meet a goal in order to collect the money raised.

This year actually didn’t start out so well on the fan film funding front.  A Kickstarter back in March for The Holy Core failed to get even halfway to their $12K goal, despite being run by the same folks who wrote and directed the highly popular Chance Encounter fan film.  Fortunately, an angel donor can through and funded the entire production, so The Holy Core will be made, after all.  Yay!

Things were still looking sluggish in April when a $10K Indiegogo for The Romulan War stalled about halfway to its goal.  But after extending the campaign out an additional thirty days, The Romulan War not only fully funded but surpassed the goal with nearly $12K, allowing them to cover the overhead cost of using Indiegogo in the first place.

Also wrapping up last week and going over their Indiegogo goal was the non-Trek fan film (but edited by Axanar and Free Enterprise‘s own Robert Meyer Burnett) Sky Fighter, which blew past its $25K goal to finish at $31,284.

So things seem to be looking up for fan film crowd-funding…at least for now.  Can The Lexington Adventures continue this trend and reach THEIR goal, as well?  To do that, they need support from fans like you.  Is Lexington worth your donation dollar?

For the answer to this question, I went right to the source: show-runner JOSEPH “JOEY” BONICE and VANCE MAJOR, who will be a producer on this fan film.  Joey works for the U.S. government and is currently stationed in Germany.  But he’ll be moving back to the U.S. soon and and will be diving right into working on The Lexington Adventures, currently scheduled for filming during the third week of September.  Vance is known to most fans as the face of Erick Minard of Starship Valiant and about 30 other fan films that Vance wrote and directed.

Let’s see what the guys had to say…

Continue reading “Time to GO FUND the new fan film THE LEXINGTON ADVENTURES! (interview with JOSEPH BONICE and VANCE MAJOR)”

THE ROMULAN WAR releases a GAME-CHANGER!

Yesterday I mentioned that the SKY FIGHTER Indiegogo only needed 10% more to reach their goal of $25,000.  And—poof!—they had done it by late afternoon!

So now I’m mentioning the the Indiegogo for THE ROMULAN WAR, which is only $1,705 short of its $10,000 goal with just FOUR days left.  Yeah, it would’ve been cooler to say $1,701 dollars short, but either way, they’re knocking on the door of being completely funded.

I asked show-runner MARK NACCARATO what this final $1,705 will cover.  What if they don’t make it?  What won’t be in the final version that otherwise would have if you (yeah, I’m talking to YOU, Mr./Ms. reader!) had just donated ten or twenty bucks.

Here’s what Mark told me…

That final amount is going to allow us to properly visualize the legendary BATTLE OF CHERON. Those of you who know your Trek history know that Cheron was the final battle of the war where Earth marshaled its forces for one last desperate assault to stave off complete annihilation by the Romulans. This sequence will be everything you think it should be. In a word, it will be EPIC!

So do it for Cheron, folks!  Do it for jaw-dropping visual FX!  Do it for Starfleet so we can win this war!

To give fans a taste of what this battle might look like, Mark just released a final trailer for the campaign, titled “Game Changer.”  The video introduces fans to the character of Admiral Matthias Jefferies, who is an expert on the weapons and tactics used by Earth during the Romulan War of the 22nd century.  Although the visual FX are still only early renderings and will look MUCH better in the finished fan production, they still look pretty darn awesome and also introduce the new Yorktown-class starship.

Take a look and then click here to donate while there’s still time!

It’s gonna be a NAIL-BITER for SKY FIGHTER!!!

I have to be honest with you guys: I didn’t think it was gonna happen.  With many recent crowd-funding campaigns for Trek fan films clawing their way to $10K (if that!), how was a NON-Star Trek fan film by a first-time director gonna possibly take in $25,000???  And beyond that, SKY FIGHTER‘s writer/director LUKAS KENDALL had selected the all-or-nothing “Fixed Goal” option on Indiegogo, where if you don’t reach your goal, you get NOTHING (just like on Kickstarter).

I mean, who does that????  If you’re gonna use Indiegogo, at least choose the “Flex Goal” option and keep whatever you raise, regardless of how much or how little.  But as Lukas told me in this interview, he was going all in…$25K or bust!!!

I was also curious about Lukas’ somewhat unorthodox approach, including posting his complete script for the Sky Fighter short film for anyone to read, using a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor to describe himself and his project, and including among his perks certain ones that seemed a bit (purposefully) outrageous.

Would this work?  Could this work?

The answer may just turn out to be YES, but it’s gonna be SUPER-CLOSE!  With just two days left (the campaign ends this Thursday at midnight Pacific Time), the Sky Fighter Indiegogo is nearly 90% of the way to its $25,000 goal.. at $22,248 as I type this.

Lukas, who gained a following producing CD collections of popular science fiction TV and movie scores, has been relying on those same followers for a lot of his donor support, and it’s certainly been working.  Among his most popular perks are the “Best of Both Worlds” signed CD ($20 + shipping), the Return to Tomorrow – Making of ST:TMP book ($35 + shipping), and especially the Star Trek TOS CD box set & 50th Anniversary 4 CD set ($199, free shipping). That latter bundle saves people around $100.

There is eve a weekend on Martha’s Vinyard for $1,000 where you get to spend a Friday-Sunday in August with Lukas Kendall’s MOTHER!  She’ll even take you out for dinner on Saturday night.  (I told you there were some outrageous perks.)    Donate $1,000 and you get to go through Lukas’ crap in the basement!

C’mon, folks!  Let’s get this Indiegogo campaign across the finish line…

CLICK HERE TO DONATE!

Have the new GUIDELINES really hindered the production of STAR TREK FAN FILMS? (panel video from Treklanta)

Photo courtesy of Lee Drew

The annual TREKLANTA con in Atlanta, GA is not a particularly huge convention, but it is one of the most fan-film-friendly cons you’re likely to find anywhere.  This is thanks in large part to Chairman ERIC L. WATTS, who organizes the convention along with Treklanta’s annual BJO AWARDS for the best Star Trek fan films from the previous year.  And there’s usually at least a panel or two dedicated to a particular fan film or fan films in general.

This year, the most notable fan film panel was being led by RANDY LANDERS, show-runner for POTEMKIN PICTURES in Pelham, AL, which has produced about five dozen Trek fan films over the past eight years!  The title of the panel: “Have the new guidelines really hindered the production of Star Trek fan films?”

Good question!

To help answer this, Randy invited five additional noted Star Trek fan filmmakers to join him for a lively panel discussion:

JOSE E. CEPEDA -Show-runner and lead actor on the long-running STAR TREK: NATURES HUNGER web series.

GREG TEFT – Cast member of STARSHIP: REPUBLIC, which will soon be filming more fan productions on the former Star Trek Continues “Stage 9” sets in GA.

GLEN L. WOLFE – Co-owner of the STARBASE STUDIOS sets in AR and the show-runner of THE FEDERATION FILES anthology series.

MARK NACCARATO – Show-runner for the upcoming Trek fan project THE ROMULAN WAR, which is crowd-funding right now!  (Have you donated yet???)

ALEC PETERS – Head of Axanar Productions and Executive Producer of PRELUDE TO AXANAR.

Interestingly , when Alec’s participation on the panel was announced, even though the panelists were all fine with it, apparently a number of detractors weren’t.  Eric L. Watts was berated with e-mails and criticism in detractor social media groups.  (I’ve invited Eric to comment on that separately as a guest blogger later this week.)

The panel discussion was really enlightening and fun to watch.  And thanks to a video shot by LEE DREW (and posted here with the blessing of both Lee and Eric), you get to watch it, as well (in two parts)…

BJO FAN FILM AWARD WINNERS for 2018 announced!

For the past four years, the annual TREKLANTA Convention has hosted an awards ceremony for the best Star Trek fan films released during the previous year.  Initially called the “Independent Star Trek Film Awards,” the name was shorted to “The Bjo Awards” last year in honor of Bjo Trimble, the woman credited with saving Star Trek from an early cancellation by NBC by coordinating the great letter-writing campaign back in 1968.

The Bjo’s for 2018 were awarded this past weekend in a variety of categories (see the full entry rules here).  Each category had four-to-six finalists selected from the following list of 21 nominees:

Release Date Run Time Series Name Episode
1/1/17 0:14:58 Star Trek: Natures Hunger Sting of the Prosecution
1/4/17 0:30:05 Starship Tristan Between Two Worlds
1/11/17 0:08:26 Starship Intrepid Duty of Care
1/13/17 0:11:33 Starship Deimos No Greater Love
2/1/17 0:20:42 Chance Encounter
2/10/17 0:07:49 Starship Tristan Seeing Red
2/20/17 0:57:20 Quark’s Space Station Too Much Traffic
4/2/17 0:54:11 Star Trek Continues Still Treads the Shadow
4/4/17 0:14:17 Starship Tristan Departures
4/29/17 0:15:00 Survivors
5/26/17 0:14:09 Starship Deimos The Archive
7/30/17 0:49:13 Star Trek Continues What Ships Are For
7/31/17 0:14:31 Starship Tristan The Monsters Are With Us
8/13/17 0:07:56 Starship Tristan The Voice of Your Blood
8/18/17 0:28:20 The Federation Files Extraction
9/8/17 0:12:18 The Derelict
10/18/17 0:46:34 Star Trek Continues To Boldly Go, Part I
11/13/17 0:58:10 Star Trek Continues To Boldly Go, Part II
12/14/17 0:05:47 Starship Triton New Orders
12/29/17 0:10:13 Star Trek: The Mirror Frontier
12/30/17 0:13:35 The Federation Files Walking Bear, Running Wolf

You might have noticed that all four Star Trek Continues episodes from 2017 are on this list, meaning that there was definitely an 800-pound mugato to contend with this past year (four mugatos, in fact!).  As such, many of the results below might not seem all that unexpected.  That said, there were still a couple of surprises.

Also, I’d like to add, on a personal note, that who won isn’t as important as who participated and, most of all, that these awards are given out annually in the first place.  All Star Trek fan films are worthy of our respect and celebration because, whether slick and polished or just grass roots with some soil showing, these productions each resulted from hard work, dedication, and love Star Trek.

So if you haven’t seen some of the nominees above, think about clicking on a few of the links.  You just might be pleasantly surprised!

Continue reading “BJO FAN FILM AWARD WINNERS for 2018 announced!”

Have the AXANAR detractors set a TRAP for ALEC PETERS?

Guys, I am really sorry for giving this topic so much attention, but it is quickly turning into a possible “detractorgate” story, and I feel it’s important to share what just happened.

As I covered on Saturday in this editorial blog, AXANAR detractor MICHAEL ILASI created a series of “mockery” videos of ALEC PETERS and Axanar using previously unreleased blooper footage from Prelude to Axanar without the consent of Alec or any of the cast members who appeared in the 2014 fan film.  This sparked quite a tempest both here and over on the Fan Film Forum Facebook group (and probably elsewhere).

When I woke up this morning, the following e-mail was waiting for me.  It had been sent anonymously via the “Contact Us” form here on Fan Film Factor at 3:43am.  Here’s a screen cap of the message…

Click to enlarge

I have no way to verify that this was, in fact, from a detractor and not just someone pretending to be a detractor.  However, I did have an interesting IM exchange with Michael Ilasi via Facebook…

It’s not necessarily a smoking gun, but the gun barrel still feels a little warm.  The fact that Michael messaged me mere minutes after Alec contacted YouTube to ask that the videos be taken down leads me to believe that yes, this was all planned out as an elaborate (is that the right adjective?) “trap” for Alec.  And of course, Michael later says, “There are more people involved in this…” implying, if I may use a word that I loathe, a conspiracy.

Needless to say, I contacted Alec himself (as Michael requested), but I also included a forward of the anonymous message I’d just received and asked for any response on the record.  Here’s what Alec wrote back…

Continue reading “Have the AXANAR detractors set a TRAP for ALEC PETERS?”

Confirmed: THE EXPANSE will have a FOURTH SEASON!

Okay, you can officially stop trying to save THE EXPANSE because Amazon has just saved it…in rather dramatic fashion!

Barely two weeks after The Expanse was canceled by Syfy, and after concerted efforts by fans, cast, and crew to try to rally support and revive the series, Amazon Studios and Alcon Entertainment announced that yes, there WILL be a fourth season of this critically-acclaimed, fan-favorite space sci-fi series.  It will appear on Amazon Prime.

The news became official during a break for dinner at the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Los Angeles this past Friday night.  Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced to people at the gathering:

“I was talking to the cast half an hour ago, before the break for dinner started. I was telling them that we are working hard at Amazon to save The Expanse, but it wasn’t a done deal yet. During dinner, ten minutes ago, I just got word that The Expanse is saved!”

The room—which included many fans of the show since it features a very realistic portrayal of life in our solar system in the next two hundred years or so—burst into enthusiastic applause.  Bezos then added:

“The show is extraordinary, and these guys are unbelievably talented,” as he pointed to The Expanse table.

The grass-roots effort to rescue the show reminded me of other fan attempts to save beloved series like Star Trek: Enterprise, Farscape, Firefly, and others…all with mixed results.  What is amazing to me is that now, with so many subscription services like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu and others—all looking for popular content (and often flush with cash!)—network cancelation isn’t nearly as certain or permanent a fate as it used to be.  Imagine if Fox had canceled Firefly today.  If Netflix had a streaming deal for the series, might they have tried to pick up the show the same way that Amazon just picked up The Expanse?  One wonders.

Anyway, three cheers for Jeff Bezos and Amazon Studios!  It’s nice to see the fans win every so often.  Now, if only there might be some way to resurrect Lucifer from cancellation, as well…